Forget It
by TheExitDoor
Summary: Edgar and Johnny go to see a movie together. ONESHOT.


**Forget It**

**I blame this all on Zarla and her accursed _Vargas _fanfiction (read it). Curse youuu, Zarlaaa. -shakes fist- (she's a great gal, really. Go read _Vargas _or I'll poke your eyes out)**

**So anyway, this story takes place in the _Vargas _universe. Johnny decides that if he can't kill himself, he'll just have to give himself amnesia and re-start life. Edgar doesn't agree with the plan.**

**Edgar and Johnny belong to JCV who can somehow put out crap like the _B.A.C. _and still make a profit. If you don't know who Edgar is (shame on you) check out the religious guy strapped to that killing machine found in issue 2 of _JtHM._**

**Scriabin and the _Vargas _universe are Zarla's brain-children. Read her fic.**

**Dedicated to all Edgar fans out there.**

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By their nature, Edgar Vargas and Johnny C. (last name unknown much like other details of his life) were introverts. However, nature worked individually in both of them. 

Edgar was well kempt and the quiet sort, the kind of person who never stood out and never did anything to stand out. Family was distant, friends were practically non-existent, and his social life even more so. Before he met Johnny, his life went approximately like so: sleep, eat, work, eat, sleep. On Sundays it was different because work was replaced by Sunday mass and recreation. Edgar's recreation was more or less watching TV or reading something; it had never been organizing things with a friend.

Johnny was different. Johnny behavior was erratic, illogical, and insane. It contrasted with Edgar's ordered, rational, mentally sound way of life like black on white. Johnny talked to inanimate objects, got advice from Pillsbury doughboys, eventually a Bub's Burger Boy and a severed rabbit's head. People were drawn to Johnny, but not in a positive way. And Johnny reacted to these people in an equally non-positive way, which included much yelling, severing, skewering, stabbing, strangling and other such ways of killing people. For some reason Johnny managed to pull those stunts off in the most public of locations without getting arrested.

When Edgar Vargas had found himself strapped to a machine that obviously served a morbid purpose, his instinctive response was fear. But Edgar, being as human and detached as he was, suppressed nature. He didn't scream or struggle and when Johnny, his captor, asked him something, he would reply calmly, choosing his words carefully and watching his tone to make sure it was in no way threatening or insulting to his captor.

Johnny was obviously fascinated by Edgar, not having come across many of his kind: a real human. He had been amazed by his ability to remain calm, to completely detach himself from the emotions that would have driven him to pleading and crying. He had felt a tight twinge in his chest and disgust in his belly at the thought of killing Edgar, someone nice. Edgar would not make an appropriate symbol for humanity, therefore it would be senseless to kill him as a representation of Johnny's hatred for the species. On the other hand, he needed the blood.

The only thing that had spared Edgar from his doom was a twist of fate.

Twist indeed. Despite being alive, Edgar could not rid himself of Johnny's presence in his life. Strangely, part of him didn't want to rid himself of him. Johnny made his life more interesting, although in a morbid, terrifying way. Edgar's phone rang more than it ever did and it was always the crazy maniac on the other line. Edgar had grown to fear the phone. The only thing that scared him more than the phone's ringing was when it didn't ring. Although he told himself that maybe it was best to ignore it, he donned his coat and went over to check on Johnny. He felt happy when he found out that he was okay.

For some reason, he cared about Johnny. And he could tell that Johnny, in his own twisted way, cared about him, too.

Johnny C., Johnny, If-you're-a-friend-you-can-call-me-Nny (not like the thing on your leg, but it sounds the same). Johnny told Edgar he could call him Nny.

It was a Sunday night. Edgar was kneeling in the front pew of an empty church with his forehead resting against his clasped hands raised in prayer. The wooded Lord and Saviour was nailed to his cross and looked down at Edgar's figure with forgiving, empty eyes. The figure was meaningless, but the idea and person behind the wooden man filled Edgar with hope and love for mankind. All of mankind. It usually lasted up until he actually met a member of mankind.

_This is quite a pointless pastime_, a voice in his head said with a yawn. Scriabin. _You've already seen god in his glorious, potato-like form. No elderly man. No white beard. No face obscured by golden, eye burning light. Not much to pray for._

Some time ago, Edgar got himself involved in one of Johnny's suicide attempts. An escapee of Johnny's torture basements killed him. Edgar had seen God and had seen the Devil, both Heaven and Hell. Despite God's less-than-breathtaking appearance, Edgar still found it important to worship him.

_How desperate. Your life would be confusing without him, wouldn't it? Just how life is meant to be like._

Edgar finished his prayer with an amen and walked out, his footsteps echoing inside the church walls.

The air outside was cool and the sky was dark, speckled with stars and glowing with a moon that grinned down at him, the shape of the Cheshire Cat's unnerving smile. In front of him the city's buildings grew out of the horizon and illuminated the sky with their own artificial light. Behind him the church's stained glass windows glowed softly with candles. The was no sound save for the chirping of a cricket, the barking of a dog of the nearby houses and sometimes a passing car.

He stood on the pavement in front of the church, leaning against its stone sign. His fingers passed over the scars under his eyes, scars given by the person he was waiting for.

_Who are you waiting for, hmm?_ teased a voice in his mind. Edgar suspected it had come from Johnny. He called it Scrabin.

Edgar didn't answer Sciabin's taunting. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eye sockets with a tired yawn. He heard the clinking of metal against cement. Edgar put his glasses back on and looked at the newcomers.

"Edgar," he said half as a greeting, half to make sure.

"Hello, Nny," Edgar said.

Johnny was an excessively thin, tan-skinned man. He dressed primarily in black and wore long boots with steel tips. Scriabin had been kind enough to point out to Edgar that they looked like cloven hooves. His hair used to be black. After coming back from death, most of it had burned off and had left him with two bangs that stood up like puppy ears or antennae. His hair did what hair did and grew back. Johnny dyed it dark blue. He was wearing a long, black trench coat tonight, the coat Edgar had given to him once. Well… not as much given as much as Johnny mistook it for a gift when he forgot it at the killer's house.

_Hello, Johnny. I missed you so much. Give me a kiss_, filled in a snickering Scriabin.

Johnny blinked and said nothing. Had he heard? Could he hear?

"Johnny?" Edgar asked worriedly.

"I thought I'd find you here, maybe," Johnny said, deciding to talk. "I thought we could go somewhere."

"Where, Nny?"

"There's a decent looking movie playing. There haven't been any worth seeing for a while."

"Hm? What's it called?"

_"Forget It_," Johnny said.

"Well... maybe we can do something else."

"No. What's wrong with the movie?" Johnny said with dangerous annoyance in his voice. "The _name _of the movie is _Forget It_."

"Oh. Okay. Where's your car?"

They were sitting in good seats and the theatre was mostly empty so there were no excessively tall people sitting in front of them. There were, of course, other people there, not excluding the token teenage couple sitting in the back that didn't have the decency to wait for the room to go dark before starting to grope each other.

"What's this movie about?" Edgar whispered to Johnny as the preview started rolling.

"Trauma, memory of the trauma, whether you should be deprived of that memory," Johnny answered. "Something that happened toa girl and she wants to remember, but then she decides she doesn't want to know when she knows. The trailer wasn't very specific. Haven't you seen the trailer?"

Edgar wasn't the sort of person that spent a lot of time watching TV. He had a small, plain looking one in his house that he seldom watched.

"I don't watch a lot of TV or movies. It isn't really something I do."

"Really? Then why do you come?" Johnny asked honestly, curiously.

Edgar didn't know why. Sciabin sighed in the back of his brain.

_Well, that's _so_ obvious, Edgar._

The movie started and Johnny's attention turned to the screen. Edgar sighed and sank into his seat, determined to watch as well.

_Why do you go to the movies with him?_ Scriabin asked mockingly.

_Shh. I'm trying to watch the movie._

_Because it's _him_, isn't it?_

The movie was dark and tragic. It was indeed about a girl and something that happened to her.

The girl had come home for the holidays and found newspaper clippings and other such things that said she had been raped at age seventeen. But she didn't remember. When she confronted her parents, they revealed that they had erased that part of her memory at a memory-erasing company. The movie continued showing flashbacks of what happened, memories re-awaken by every photo, by every scrap of paper she found, and they all went backwards towards the night the happened.

The act was shown and Edgar felt his insides turn cold and he averted his eyes from the screen and tried to block out the sound. _Just a movie_, he told himself.

He saw Johnny sitting next to him, looking away as well, but deep inside his own mind, eyes wide with hatred and disgust. His claw-like fingers dug into the armrests of his seat and the corners of his mouth twitched into a vicious, horrified snarl.

The girl got more and more torn and anguished as the movie went on. In the end, she destroyed all she had found, went to the memory-erasing company and had it all taken out of her mind. It was a bittersweet, disturbing ending.

Johnny was very quiet when they exited the theatre. Of course, Johnny was almost always quiet, but this silence was uncomfortable and awkward and his face was angry, his mouth still curled into a scowl. Edgar re-adjusted his glasses and breathed out.

"I didn't know that was in the movie," Johnny said quietly as they got in the car.

"It was only a movie," Edgar said.

"Yes, but still! Fuck! _Raping_ someone, Edgar! It's just so… disgusting and vile and _rrrgh_!" Johnny's hands tightened on the steering wheel as he spat out, "It wouldn't be so lovely if it happened in real life, would it! But we can accept it just because it happens in a movie!"

Johnny grumbled and ranted for the rest of the drive. Edgar listened patiently and spoke when it was required, otherwise he just let Johnny fume and rant. It involved less dying by his part.

The car stopped in front of Edgar's building. Johnny looked dejected and ignoredEdgar childishly ashestepped out of the car.

_You're going to, aren't you?_ Scriabin asked in an annoyed voice.

"Would you like to come in, Johnny? To eat or something?"

_And of course you're going to invite him. Never mind my advice._

Eating was always a good reason to invite Johnny in. You could tell by the thin, worn-out look that he always had.

"I don't know. Do you have Skettios?"

_Yes, Edgar. You do have Skettios, but you don't even like that much. The only reason you have them is to have an excuse to invite him in and feed him. Like you're his mother. Or like he's your dog. Or your husband. You housewife._

Edgar gritted his teeth against Scriabin's ranting. "Yes, I have them."

"Okay. I'll come," Johnny said and stepped out of the car.

Edgar's home was neat and ordered, plain and boring It was all decorated in greyish tones: grey carpet, grey-blue walls, grey-red couch. There was nothing extravagant about it, no paintings hung up except for a few religious ones. There was evidence of Johnny's previous visits, a stain of soda darkening the carpet, the scratches of Johnny's knife on the furniture and walls, a few dark-brown specks of dry blood here and there. If you opened the books that Edgar had, you would find that the blank pages before the story were no longer blank and were covered by Johnny's distinguishable scratching scrawl.

Johnny sat in Edgar's somewhat hard couch and turned on the TV to a crude show they were putting on. Edgar still wondered why Johnny liked intelligent movies and trash TV at the same time. At least he wasn't watching soap operas and reality shows.

"It makes you wonder, though," Johnny said with his eyes glued to the flickering screen. He ran a hand through his hair and furrowed his brow in concentration. "She preferred to forget all about it again rather than die. She preferred to forget something that happened, part of who she was, to get another chance at living. It seems cowardly, but also smart, hopeful. In a creepy sort of way. You know?"

"I suppose," Edgar said slowly. Must choose words carefully. "I think she must've realized that she had a good life in the absence of that event and that it would be a pity to destroy that possibility along with yourself. If a memory of an event is gone and no one is there to remind you of it, it's like it never existed."

"Yeah. Smart of the company to charge for selective amnesia. That's all it is really. I'd need a lot of that if I wanted to forget myself. Not selective amnesia. Full amnesia."

Whatever was playing did something funny and Johnny started laughing. Then he put his hand to his stomach as it gave out a loud gurgle.

"Skettios sound good?" Edgar suggested.

Johnny shrugged and tried to look like it didn't matter. He failed. "Sure, I guess."

As Edgar entered the kitchen he could hear the sound of canned laughter coming from the TV in the other room, Johnny's disbelieving snorts, muttered rants and unsettling giggles and Scriabin mumbling in his head.

_Quit feeding him._

_Be quiet, Sciabin_, Edgar said as he prepared water and fetched a can of skettios.

_I'm sorry, MOTHER_, Scriabin responded instolently.

The TV continued making its sounds outside the kitchen, but something felt off. The skettios boiled in the water, bubbles exploding and steam rising. No laughter or muttering from Johnny in the other room.

_Maybe he hung himself in your bathroom._

_Scriabin…_

_Tried to kill himself AGAIN. God, he doesn't tire of that._

_It's not funny._

_Swinging from side to side, feet dangling, eyes bulging—_

_Shut up!_

_Make me._

There was a loud thump coming from the other room, hard, solid object hitting hard, solid object. The thumping continued. Edgar sighed. What was he doing now?

_Better check on him, Edgar. Let's check him for booboos. We have band-aids with teddy bears on them, right? Although he would probably like band-aids with skulls on them more._

Edgar turned off the stove, letting the just-finished Skettios cool down. He exited the kitchen and went into the adjacent room. The TV was still on, commercials informing about how meaty fresh the new Bloaty's Toothpaste made your teeth, but Johnny wasn't sitting on the couch. Instead, he was at another place of the room hitting his head against Edgar's wall with a considerable amount of force and grunting in pain after each blow.

"What are you doing?" Edgar asked alarmed.

Johnny rested his head against the wall and stared at him out of the corner of his narrowed eye. "I'm working."

He started hitting his head against the wall again. Each time he would pause, his subconcious telling him that hurting yourself wasn't a good idea. Johnny would grit his teeth and slam his head again.

"But _why_?" Edgar said drawing closer and reaching for him.

"Don't touch me. I'm trying... to make it stop."

"Is this you low-tech version of _Forget_ _It_?"

"If it works promise not to tell me who I was."

"Johnny, this is foolish."

He reached tried to grab Johnny's arm to stop him. His hand brushed the fabric of a sleeve, enough to make his head snap up to glare at him. "Don't touch me!"

There was a knife in Johnny's hand and the maniac slashed it across the air at Edgar's face. Edgar backed off quickly, avoiding the blade but tripping in the progress. Johnny was quick and didn't allow him any time to scramble away. He crouched over him, pressed a bony knee to his stomach, tightened a hand around his throat and pointed the knife at him, threatening to pop out an eye.

"It's not a stupid idea."

_Ooooh. You're in trouble now, Edgar. I'll just leave now._

"Why must you always do this?" Johnny shrieked at him, his knife quivering in front of his eyes. "I'm trying to erase myself from this world! To begin anew! To abandon the shitty past and create a brighter future for myself! Why won't you let me be _happy_? Every time you stop my suicides and now you impede me from bettering myself through another path! I want to be something that never happened! Fuck! What the hell do you want from me?"

"I don't want you to hurt yourself," Edgar said. Although his voice broke when he said that, he wassurprisingly more calmthan anyone else would be if they were being threatened by imminent stabbing. Maybe because this had happened so many times before.

"Right," Johnny hissed. "Then why can't I just kill myself? Put an end to all the pain?"

One of Johnny's fingers passed over one of the grooves under Edgar's eyes. The knife slacked slightly in his grip as Johnny sank into self-reflection, but it didn't stop from being dangerous.

"Don't I get to be happy? Shouldn't I be able to do something I want, something that involves only me without you doing something to try to stop me? Always with your fucking righteousness. I hurt Edgar and it springs from everything I've done, from everything that's happened to me throughout my whole life. If I could just make it all go away I wouldn't see the world through a shit-filter. I could be happy. And you won't fucking let me be happy! You won't kill me. I can't kill me. You won't even let me make myself go away and replace myself with somone _better_. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to fucking kill you."

Too dangerous. Johnny pushed Edgar's head back and drew his knife up high with teeth clenched and the familiar murder in his eyes. Edgar had survived all the other attacks. Sometimes he did so with talking. Sometimes he guilted Johnny into letting go by showing the horizontal scars on his cheeks. When all else failed, he used force.

"No!"

He twisted his body beneath Johnny, one of his legs slipping free, and kicked him off. Johnny ungracefully lost his balance and the knife sank into the carpet nextto Edgar's head. The maniac growled in fury, wrapped his hands around Edgar's neck and squeezed.

"Why are you making this so difficult?" Johnny hissed as he pressed harder.

Edgar could feel Johnny's broken nails against his skin, his throat constricting under Johnny's grip, eyes tearing up from the lack of air.

_Damn, you're stupid. You'rebarely fighting back_, Scriabin teased.

He hooked a leg behind Johnny's knee and pulled. Johnny's eyes widened as he fell. Edgar pushed Johnny back against the wall. His head banged against the white plaster. He slid down the wall, leaving a very thin trail of smeared blood as he went down, and didn't move.

Edgar gasped for air and massaged his tight throat. He fumbled for his glasses discarded in the stuggle.

"Nny?" Edgar asked nervously. He prodded Johnny's arm quickly, but didn't get a reaction. "Are you okay?"

_Let's see. You befriend a killer. You go to see a movie with him and then bring him home, knowing fully that he could kill you just because you don't have the kind of soda he likes. When he does try to kill you, you wait until you're choking before knocking him out. And then you poke his unconcious body and ask if he's okay. You should be getting an award for your stupidity soon._

_Shut up._

_That's a witty comeback._

Edgar looked at Johnny and tried to decide what to do.

_Stuff his body in a dumpster._

Edgar decided that the best course of action was to lay Johnny on the floor and get him an ice pack and some aspirin for when he woke up.

_He hit his head pretty hard_, Edgar said as he pulled Johnny into a lying position. _What if he does get amnesia? What do I do then?_

_You could choose the honest route and tell him exactly who he is: an insane homicidal maniac. Or you can do what he told you to. You can lie about his past, tell him that he was a good person that never blew up cafés, disembowled people or painted vicious walls with human blood. You candeviate from that path and tell him that he's God-loving, lives with you and anything else that would please your fancy. You could mold him to be the person you dream of: the sane Johnny. You can bend him to your will. You can manipulate his person in the ways you most desire. He could be the person you want him to be. _Edgar could feel Scriabin smirk as he talked. _Tough choice, isn't it, my boy?_

Scriabin's words loomed over him and quickly formed a dilemma within Edgar. His insides tightened with the weight of the choice. Shaking his head to try to clear his thoughts, he put a cushion from the couch underneath Johnny's head and went intobathroom to fetch something from the medicine cabinet.

_You know you want to choose the second one. You know you want to be able to control him, to be the dominant one for once._

_I-_

_This is precious. This is beyond precious._

Edgar stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. There were scratches on his neck and he knew that there would be hand-shaped bruises on his neck soon.

_To think you could make all the abuse end, Edgar. Isn't it what you want?_

He swung open the mirror and took out a bottle of aspirin amongst all the bathroom products and medicine.

_I don't know what to do._

_You know what you want to do, though. _

_I don't want to change him. Well... I _do _want to change him, but not like this._

_It may be your only chance, Edgar._

"God, my head hurts," Edgar said aloud, rubbing his eyes.

He returned to Johnny. He hadn't moved or woken up. Edgar sat next to him and watched over him.

Johnny groaned in his sleep, drew his arms to his chest, held his hands claw-like, bent his knees to his chest and rolled to one side. Edgar recognized the protective fetal position Johnny adopted in his sleep from previous encounters with a slumbering Johnny. His clothes would be drawn tighter around his body in this postion and would make the stick-like structure of his legs and the bumps of his spine protrude through the fabric. He would see his ribcage rise and fall, and the way that the dark clothing sunk into the spaces between his ribs and around the edges of his shoulder blades. His eyelids fluttered in his dreams and his mouth turned into grimaces and scowls; bad dreams.

Edgar almost fell asleep himself. Johnny had been out for a while and the night went on, the hours grew late and Edgar's mind tried to shut down when it faced the darkness of nighttime. Each time he would slump and snap back awake, berating himself for almost falling asleep. Scriabin helped in the berating as well.

Day dawned. On the floor Johnny groaned. His limbs unbent from his sleeping position and winced at the sharpness of the pain coming from the back of his head. He rubbed at it and saw that the tips of his fingers had dots of dry blood on them. He took in his surroundings, plain furniture and few ornaments, all decorated in dawning, orange sunlight. Edgar watched him as he panicked and turned around to face him with wide eyes.

"Johnny?"Edgar asked.

Johnny lashed out at him, suddenly wide awake, and threw a punch thathe dodged narrowly.

"Who are you?" Johnny shrieked. "Where am I?"

"God, do you even remember who you are?" Edgar asked withanxiety in his voice and stepping back. _What do I do?_

Johnny let out an angry hiss. His hands were balled up into fists. His eyes darted around to windows, doors, and the knife stuck in the carpet of the floor from the previous night. Johnny raised up his head to make eye-contanct with Edgar.

"Do you remember?" Edgar asked. _What if he doesn't? What will I do?_

Johnny didn't answer and continued to look as him. The stare seemed to last forever.

Finally, Johnny blinked and drew back.

"Edgar Vargas?" he said questioningly.

Edgar sighed. "Yes."

"Why did you let me sleep? I hate sleeping." Johnny recognized the knife, looked at the wall behind him andsaw the copper-colored blood. He rubbed the wound on the back of his head and looked back at Edgar. He noticed the bruises that had formed on his neck. "Oh, that's right."

The killer sat back down on the floor, put his face in his hands and groaned.

"You didn't forget anything, did you?" Edgar said, more like a statement than a question.

"Not a thing."

_What a pity_, Scriabin said. _Don't you agree?_

"It was a pretty hard hit, too," Johnny said. "Maybe I..."

Johnny went quiet. Edgar broke the silence by clearing his throat.

"Um... do you want something to drink or eat?" Edgar remembered the Skettios he hadn't removed. They were probably cold and congealed by now. "Do you need some aspirin?"

"No. No thanks. Well, maybe the aspirin. I'd love to stay and everything, but I think I should go home. I have to think. And there are people in the basement I need to attend to."

"I understand."

Johnny plucked his knife from the floor, got his coat and headed for the door.

"I'll see you later."

Edgar waited until he couldn't hear the metallic clink of Johnny's footsteps.

_Well... huh... So he remebered after all_, Scriabin said.

Edgar walked into his room. It was Monday now and he wouldn't have work for another three hours or so. He's still have time to sleep a little.

_Hey, Edgar_, Scriabin said as Edgar sat down on the bed. _Just out of curiosity, what would you have done if he hadn't remembered?_

Edgar stared into space for a few moments and then took the action figure of Scriabin off his night-side table and put it in a drawer. Scriabin snickered away inside his head.

_Guess you don't want to talk about it._

Even with the Scriabin toy stored away, the question still hovered above him. Edgar didn't manage to sleep.

**End**

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**Aaaaand CUT.**

**Hope y'all enjoyed my story. ****Read and review and all that.**

**-Exit**

**P.S. I swear to God. If you guys haven't gone and read _Vargas,_ I'll... I'll just keep telling you to do it.**


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